We now come to the book of Deuteronomy, a book full of interest
in its moral warnings as to testimony, but presenting fewer subjects
for interpretation and exegesis than those, the summary of which we
have hitherto sought to give.

The scope of Deuteronomy

This book takes up Israel just on the borders of Canaan, and
insists upon the faithful maintenance of their relationship with
God, and on obedience to His commandments, as the only ground on
which Israel can enter and continue therein, adding warnings as to
the consequence of failure in obedience. It takes, in the main, the
ground of their historical state (not of typical forms, presenting
the thoughts of God, as the books we have just been considering
do). [1] The body of it, after recalling the history of the
wilderness, deals with the ordering of Israel in the land under God
without a head on earth. The people are under responsibility to
walk in obedience, with only God as their king and ruler. In
immediate reference, the people are in enjoyment of the promised
land under condition of obedience; but feasts, and such like
ordinances, look forward to millennial times. At the end the
distinction between possessing the land under condition of legal
obedience, and by the grace which accomplishes its purpose in spite
of failure is definitely brought out.

The divisions of the Book

The book may be divided into three parts. The first eleven
chapters insist upon obedience, presenting various motives to lead the
people to it. Then come, as far as the end of the twenty-ninth? divers
commandments; to which are added, by way of sanction, the consequences
of obedience and the curse upon disobedience. From the thirtieth to
the end we have things to come, the blessing of the people, and the
death of Moses.

The contents and teachings of the first eleven chapters

But this division requires more development, which will much aid
our understanding of the book. The first part recounts their history,
and this as insisting on the unity of an invisible God, their
obligation to Jehovah who has called them, through redemption, to be
with Him. This closes with chapter 4, where three cities are secured
for the two tribes and a half. Moses cannot enter into the land;
Jehovah their God is a jealous God. They are placed under the
covenant of Sinai, but He is a merciful God, and in their tribulation
they can look to the God of their fathers. In chapter 5 all Israel
are called to hear as to their present place, and put upon the basis
of the covenant of Sinai -- to observe it in the land into which they
were going to possess it. The land had been promised, but they held
it under the covenant of legal obedience, but on the basis of
deliverance wrought by Jehovah out of Egypt. Him they were
exclusively to serve, and He was a jealous God. They were to have no
kind of connection with the nations found in the land. Further, we
have the terms of the government of mercy, still of righteousness,
established in Moses's second ascent of Sinai. Thus we have the
government of God -- His ways taken into account; and so the
character of their ways and their object (chap. 8). If they did not
give heed they would perish. This leads to recalling, in order to
humble them, how they had failed all through in the desert. The
second governmental covenant is referred to, and the Lord's love that
had chosen them in pure grace, and that in spite of their failures,
had already so largely blessed them. They must circumcise their
hearts to serve Him and Him only: one only exclusive God, and a God
of government. All is summed up hortatively in chapter 11. Over
Jordan they were going, there they were to keep all that was
commanded. Here Ebal and Gerizim are brought in. To the end of
chapter 4 it is Israel outside Jordan; chapter 5 inside the land. The
first part presents the one invisible Jehovah of Horeb, jealous but
merciful, though His ways in general with the people are there too;
the second, the covenant of the ten words with Jehovah, and His
government on the ground of their responsibility. Of the first eleven
chapters, the first four form thus a rather distinct part.

Motives for obedience and consequent blessing

That which strikes one in the first chapters is, the pains that
Jehovah takes to present all possible motives to that poor people to
lead them to obedience, in order that they may be blessed. These
things, which ought at least to have touched the heart, served, alas!
only to prove its hardness, and to shew that, if man is to be
blessed, God must give him a new heart, as it is written in the
chapter which closes the second part of His exhortations to
obedience: "Yet Jehovah hath not given you a heart to perceive, and
eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day" (chap. 29:
4). Deuteronomy is, then, of all the books of Moses, that which is
the most essentially conditional -- that is to say, the first two
divisions which I have pointed out.

The secret things and their unfolding

Chapter 29, which is the last of the second division, ends,
consequently, by saying, "The secret things belong unto Jehovah our
God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our
children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." The
chapters which follow throw this into greater prominence, by
unfolding the secret things which were to happen after the people had
completely failed in the fulfilment of the law, as chapter 30, and,
still more strikingly, chapter 32, by speaking of righteousness by
faith. For the discussion as to righteousness by the law ended with
chapter 29; and chapter 30 supposes the people in a position in which
the securing of righteousness by the law was impossible, and where
there could only be question of the spirit and end of the law, in the
counsels of God. Now, Christ was the end of it, and it is thus the
apostle applies the passage (Rom. 10). It is interesting also to see
that the Lord always quotes Deuteronomy in answering Satan. He put
Himself on the true ground where Israel stood, in order to possess
and keep the land; being not only the faithful man, but the Jew, the
true Son called out of Egypt, put to the test as to His faithfulness,
in the conditions under which the people were placed by
Deuteronomy.

[1] After Genesis and the earlier chapters of Exodus, there is
very little of which the object is historical in the previous books
of Moses. And even in Genesis and the beginning of Exodus principles
and types are the most important aspect of what is related. As to the
history of Israel the apostle tells us this expressly in 1
Corinthians 10: 11. And this appreciation of the character of these
books greatly aids us in understanding them. There is no proof that
one sacrifice was offered possibly the fixed ones were; but Amos,
quoted by Stephen, would say the contrary. Those born in the
wilderness were not circumcised, and could not rightly keep the
passover.